Kanji
by Dodectron
Summary: On a road I have never known, reliving the past I never knew. A story about a girl. OC, semi-SI. Little to no fan-service. Nothing M-rated yet, though gore/etc may appear eventually. T for language. Title is subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, readers. Welcome to a little something I've decided to start working on. It is the shame and private joy of all fanfiction readers and writers- self-inserts!**

**I'm a fan of them, anyway. The ones I can recall at the moment are Dreaming of Sunshine and Decaying Bluebells; amongst other diamonds in the rough. They are an inspirational read, and I would certainly recommend them.**

**I've built a character for this which has some of my traits, all of which are exaggerated. I apologise for the fairly colloquial style of this fanfiction so far- and please forgive the terrible sparks of bad humour here and there.**

**I was going to write a lot more before I started posting anything, but after reading some more good Self-Inserts, I came to the conclusion that my writing style is extremely weak and in need of direction. I know exactly where the story is going, but I'd appreciate some honest feedback from the good readers here.**

**Thank you for your time, and enjoy; though not up to standard, I hope you can appreciate just how much it _sucks_ to be the protagonist right now.**

* * *

_'You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.' -Mae West._

* * *

I'll be the first to say that death is overrated.

There was a bit of pain. A lot of darkness. A weird lack of sensation, like that feeling you get just before you wake up in a falling dream. Like you're about to hit something, that kick-start to your heart. A jolt of adrenalin that awakens every dim sense in our pathetically soft bodies, instinct taking the wheel for the last seconds of life, just enough time to think _oh, shit_.

Right now I don't know what happened. It might be wishful thinking to say that, actually, since what I can bring up about the event was so gut-wrenching that I want to throw up over someone's shoes. I think there's red. Well, crimson.

For now I can't open my eyes. It frightened me at first.

There isn't anything to feel here. I imagine that this is what it feels to be in a sensory deprivation tank, though I was never rich or bored enough to give one of them a try. I think I can move my fingers, bend a little, kick the lower appendages. It's numb and I can see a pinkish-orange light through my gummed-up eyelids. If I reached out to grip something, the walls of my tomb cling to me and fingers squish along its sides with so little strength that I can't even grip them into a fist.

I felt myself drifting. Sometimes my world would heave and bounce around, up, down, from side to side. I mustered some form of strength at those times and kicked, stretched out until I actually felt a tingle in the muscles of my shoulders and chest. What I could do made little difference to the movement, though sometimes I could almost sense something that happened after I aimed my kicks at the tomb walls.

I was incapable of being bored. It was more like enforced sleep. Have you ever covered a bird cage with a blanket and marvelled at the sudden silence?

The only memories I could hold onto were painful. I curled into a shape which best fit my prison and pressed my fingers into pudgy cheeks. The sense of touch was absent, but I could feel the pressure of the poke.

I have something in my stomach which shouldn't be there. It's long and slippery, but so much stronger than my piddling upper and lower body strength. My thoughts wavered at that phrase- but the drift of the dark tomb was too strong for me to hold onto something so foreign, and I let go, sleeping properly for the longest time yet.

This probably went on for a long time. Like living without a job or school, time is an illusion shared by the busy. Nothing happened with a definite timemark for me, though the shaking and movement of my prison dwindled as I felt myself press more and more against my walls. I wondered at one time if the room was shrinking. I panicked and kicked and punched, one strike hard enough to push one of the walls away from me about the length of one of my fists. The wall slowly slid back into place, and I waited for a long time to be crushed by my prison- but it never happened.

I could hold onto more than one thought! A tiny flicker of joy in my heart sparked a half-hearted kick in my trailing legs.

Unlike before, my tiny movements seemed to get a reaction from the clinging tomb. It pushed in a little bit, squeezing against my skin in a horrible plastic-bag-over-head way. My throat clenched in protest- something I hadn't known I could move just yet. I pondered for a moment as to exactly why I seemed to be thinking that movement was something I would gain over time. Had I been able to bob her head before? Was kicking some kind of new development that could be evidence for my gaining some more strength?

I tucked in my chin and clenched my mouth as tightly as my numb jaw would allow. The sudden burning in my chest startled me as I remembered- finally- that I should be _breathing_.

The prison reacted powerfully to my panicked kicks. I could feel it against me, so tightly now that my arms and legs were being forced against my thudding chest. A _heartbeat_. My lord, had I not noticed my own heartbeat since I... actually, how did I get here?

Yes, remembering that horrible memory of- of blood, that crimson colour was blood- was exactly what I needed now that I wanted to breathe so badly I was viciously attacking the painfully tight prison walls.

Now that something was actually happening, the strange drifting sensation which had passed the time nice and quietly happily went on its way, leaving me to thrash like a person possessed.

What the flying crap was happening? Where was I? Why couldn't I remember how in the hell I got here?

...Why didn't I have teeth?

It got tighter. I grew frightened and my strength waned as it went on, and on, my fingers moving dully at my sides in the only movement I could manage. As an afterthought, I wiggled my toes and felt myself smile at the _sensation_.

The walls pinched tighter than ever, as if a giant fist was crushing them together. It was strongest at my feet, and I felt myself move slowly away from the worst of the crush, like the stuff inside a tube of toothpaste.

It was a bit demeaning, actually. I am not an oral hygiene product!

My head pushed against the flat of the wall I'd never really bothered to explore- even in my sensory deprivation, I could tell which way was up and down, and going down where it was even darker and further away didn't exactly appeal to me. It pushed and _pushed_.

Suddenly, my big, fat head cleared some kind of barrier with a squelchy popping sensation and I was on my way down.

I'll spare you the actual exit. It was even grosser than you might think. I choked on some _fluid_ as I made the final slide out into the open air. Even the increasingly painful asphyxiation wasn't enough to distract- or spare- me from the agony of suddenly feeling things.

It was freezing, and I could feel the difference between the dry of the air and the wetness coating me. It stiffened into some horrible mucusy second skin, and I gurgled beneath the choking in despair at the thought of being covered with something so gross. What _was_ that? Had I actually been held prisoner in some kind of deprivation tank with a tarp for walls? Had I not just dreamt that up?

Something rough and nasty scraped over me and I flinched away from it. Was that thing covered in razor blades?

I finally spat out the stuff in my throat, oddly proud of that smooth throwing-up movement- I am so pathetic, wow- and let rip with exactly what I thought of my situation.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

* * *

Crying is exhausting, you know? I went on, and on, until my entire body was hot and the skin stretched uncomfortably on my squished-up, wailing face. I refused to try and open my eyes. There was probably some kind of messed-up prison guard laughing at me right now.

The rough thing scraped over my skin over and over again, leaving starkly cold skin behind. It seemed that the thing was ridding me of the slime I was covered in, and it dipped once into my gaping mouth, drawing out the residual gross like someone sucking snake poison out of a bite. Which, by the way, does not work and should not happen. No-one put your mouth on someone's wound and suck out the stuff inside.

I didn't want to try and squint, to crack open the gates of hell and bright lights. Maybe wherever I was, they wanted to try the old interrogation thing? Shine a bright light in my face to make me go blind forever? Wait, that's not how it worked..

The slime was gradually cleaned from me- during which process I was rolled over and over, my head upside-down at one point- and I was pressed into a surface considerably softer than the scraper. It was tugged up around me and I couldn't resist snuggling into it. So warm!

Now that I wasn't apparently floating in some weird kind of water, I could appreciate being clean and dry. My wails died down as I unwittingly let out a huge yawn, happily breathing in the undefinable smell of my very comfortable bindings.

The gravity shifted around me, a sign that I was being moved. I sleepily wondered what kind of machine could carry me around so gently, without robotically jerking me all over the place, and yawned again as I was dropped lightly into something very warm and soft. Hot air gusted over my face and I scrunched up my nose, the bombardment of _stink_ way too much sensory stimulation. A hot, clammy something pressed against my face and something wet dropped onto my cheek, rolling down like a tear.

I sighed. They allowed me to drift away, whoever they were. At least my captors had good manners.

I guess I probably should have figured everything out earlier. It _was_ kind of obvious. If I'd attempted to look around at all, I'd have understood a least a little more at this point with a lot less stress than I ended up experiencing later.

When I woke up again, it was still far too bright.

Frustrated at the apparent patience of my jailors, I decided enough was enough. I opened my eyes. It hurt like someone stabbing me directly in the face with a pepper spray-coated swiss army knife.

Everything was blurry. I blinked, refocused, probably crossed my eyes a couple of times. Nope, still blurry. Damn it.

It was frustrating to lie in my coccoon, however soft and enjoyable it was. I could move! My fingers wiggled like worms where they were, tucked into my sides. I opened my mouth to grin- and gurgled.

Uh... I shut my mouth, no longer gaping like a fish. Let's try that again. I cleared my throat, the sound sharp in the dead silence, and scowled in deep concentration. Something simple. Maybe my voice was weak from disuse.

"...Ggugggllrrr!"

Aaah! I sounded like I was gargling marbles!

Someone closed a door in the distance. My face smoothed into a faint smile and I struggled until a hand was out of the warmth of my new prison. I splayed my fingers and, promptly forgetting why I'd spent energy on doing so, waved them in front of my face. Hey, I could see that! My hand was small and pink, the nails tiny and perfect on the end of little fingers. My hand was a lot pudgier than I remembered.

Vibrations came through the soft thing I was lying on, occurring in measured gaps and growing more powerful with each shock. They grew strong enough to make me, bundled up in my bindings, wobble before they stopped. I blinked and stared straight up at a brownish blur that seemed to waver before coming closer, growing impossibly large until a _thing_ the same colour as my hand hovered just within my sight. This thing was attached to a larger thing, and gusts of warm air came from it. _Stinky_.

My hand reached up without a thought and latched onto the thing, fingers curling into the holes warm air was coming from. The blurry thing jerked, nearly dislodging my fledgling grasp from its warm, slightly flaky position and startling a burble from me.

The thing paused and seemed to wait for something. Two light spots were in its middle, and two tiny dark blurs in their middles roamed around before aiming down at me. I frowned and made some unspeakably gurgly noise. A huge thing moved into view and opened up like the legs of a crab. The 'legs' came down over my face and gripped the sides of my head firmly. I let go of the warm thing to wrap my fingers around one of the legs. This wasn't what I'd call comfortable.. and what were these weird gripping things? They were warm?

The rough warmth of the skin-coloured crab drew away after a moment, the blurred thing overhead approaching to press something soft and wet to the end of my nose. It paused there long enough for me to stare directly into the most blindingly piercing yellow eyes I have ever seen. I froze as I gazed into those inhuman cut-glass irises. They seemed to be looking _into_ me rather than _at_ me. Eyes shouldn't be that colour. Yellow isn't a normal colour for eyes to be.

The wet thing pulled away from me and the big creamy-brown thing I'd been tugging on earlier pushed down to nudge at my nose. Enormous lips curved into a smile as the reflective yellow things beamed down at me.

"Hajimemashite, akachan."

* * *

I'm afraid that's the extent of my coherent first days. I spent the next several in a blur- literally, since I was apparently half blind- as I was tossed from cooing arms to baby-talking laps. At least, I assume they were baby-talking. Nothing made any sense to me, and it was all starting to grind my last reserves of patient logic. It didn't help that I couldn't seem to focus on a single idea at a time. My brain was like a butterfly; fluttering from idea to idea, pausing to take a sip of the directions those ideas might take me before abandoning that entirely only to forget all progress I'd made in the next catnap.

And boy, did I sleep. Apparently breathing and eating (find a happy place) for myself was a lot harder than most babies made it look.

Yeah... I'm a baby. A little helpless squawler. I had that force-fed to me every time someone shoved a bottle of mushy horror in my face. I have no idea _how_ or _why_, but I'm tiny and everything is bigger than me and I keep crying because I don't recognise anything.

Each day was a safely boring routine, which I clung to with all of my puny infant desperation for something I could call normal. I woke up when it was dark and cold, and cried because I missed turning over in bed and going back to sleep. I woke up when it was crisp and bright and cried because I couldn't get myself a bowl of cereal with a naughty bit of sugar sprinkled over. I cried when people touched me, when I was manhandled, and when I was bored. I suppose the people around me thought this was normal, or perhaps they were just modern-day saints.

I had discovered the blurs were people. I still couldn't see them properly, though my vision distance grew with each day until I could visually locate the window some feet to the side of my cot. Oddly enough, the scent of each individual was more telling than the sight of them. I would almost call them nondescript if it wasn't for the radically brightly-coloured hair sprouting around their heads which fell in my face when they made goo-goo faces overhead.

The idea of being a baby- a baby!- was so enormous I could hardly wrap my infantile little mind around it. Had I regressed about twenty years? Some kind of weird mutant gene that works backwards, or a time travel accident?

Though, to think of it from this perspective... I wasn't being imprisoned, was I? I'm a little baby, not a kidnappee or a prisoner of war. That didn't make my situation any less far-fetched, but it did explain all of the weird crap I'd been going through lately. I studiously avoided thinking about _it_.

I was grateful that no-one was expecting me to latch onto the nearest milk source. If the mere thought of having to do that when I was really a baby, with my actual mum, felt disturbing, imagine having to do that with a complete stranger! I wasn't being held warmly to anyone in particular. Sometimes I felt a little worried about that, staring up at the fuzzy green ceiling. Babies came from mums. Where was the one who had me?

I had a mum, right?

* * *

I yawned, stretching my jaw out until it made a tiny clicking sound. The brown blur that usually 'fed' me had spent less than a minute with me today. Whatever rush they'd been in, they hadn't bothered to check if I was clean or wrap me up tightly in my swaddling.

My muscles were jelly, and that was an overstatement. I felt restless, lying flat on my cot. I was just a week old, if I'd remembered the days correctly, and babies didn't start walking or crawling around for a while. Bunch of crying wimps.

I pulled the blanket away from my head and wriggled like a beached fish until I had most of my upper body free. Everything was so chubby with baby fat that when I wriggled it was more like a belly-shuffle. Think elephant seal. I pushed my legs out and scrunched them back in, angling my feet over the folded edge of the blanket. My lumpy feet found their way out into the startlingly cold air and I allowed myself a quick grin at my success.

Unfortunately, my wild escape ended there. My arms were too weak to even push me onto my belly. I sort of bum-shuffled down the soft thing I was lying on and got my arms accidentally tangled in the blanket I'd abandoned. It hurt to have my hands twisted under my mostly dead weight, but no matter how I wriggled, I was stuck.

A bit of an embarrassing situation to be stuck in, but hey, I was a baby, right? Babies do dumb things all the time. Like cut off circulation to your hands and probably have them fall off because I got stuck sitting on them.

My face screwed up into a misery-filled contortion and I sniffled, the pain worsening with each passing moment. Someone had to come by some time. And they'd probably notice I wasn't very happy here, steadily growing colder as my bare legs stamped weakly down where I couldn't see them.

Eventually, someone did come by my little green room. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite who I was expecting.

* * *

My hands were completely numb. I was cold, shivering, stretched out with my limbs entangled in an old, fluffy, white woollen blanket, my belly empty and my arms trapped under my stupid, fat back. My sniffling had developed into quiet crying, the kind no real baby restricted themselves to. I was just too frightened to call out with a real wail, hoping against hope that I could somehow fix the situation myself and I wouldn't have to be helped by these complete strangers.

Eyes smeared with tears, I sniffled again, the little sob echoing back from the shadowed nursery walls.

The soft chirping of crickets stopped.

I didn't notice anything through the haze of pain that had settled over me. I gave a particularly fierce kick and gurgled proudly at how _strong_ that one had been.

Something was strange. It was a mixture of odd silence, one I hadn't realized had been taken up with the little sounds of crickets at night and people walking about at day, and the addition of something I had never felt before. It was... dark. Like the creeping of shadow that stole over the ground and sky when day turned to night, so obvious when you knew what was going on, but slow and steady enough to pass a lesser being's notice. It felt wrong, in a way I didn't understand.

The night seemed to press more heavily on me and I coughed as I _breathed_ the heaviness in. The infant equivalent of a house cat seemed to sit on my chest as the darkness increased, the air thickening like bitter soup. It actually tasted bad, a sour bitterness that set me hacking in my painfully awkward position. I couldn't breathe. _I can't breathe!_

And then, someone was in my room.

They were darker than the midnight blue sky I could see through the nearby window. They seemed to _fit_ in the most shadowy part of the nursery. I didn't stop coughing, the weight worse than ever with the black figure present by my cot. They approached, hands moving to the sides of my bed.

The silhouette seemed to vibrate with the dark heaviness that pressed me down into the blanket. The place I normally thought of as _face blur_ hovered in that unassailably high position, gazing down at me.

Roughshod fingers moved to brush my forehead, oddly gentle for the terrifying presence of the dark stranger. I strangled a giddy giggle. Looks like I met that tall and dark stranger.

Two glittering eyes surveyed me for a moment more.

Apparently come to some decision, the stranger dug their fingers under me and lifted me from the bed, hands just under my armpits. My arms tingled and _hurt_ as blood pooled again in my little hands. I stopped crying as the shadow tucked me firmly under an arm and did something with their hands, the swift movements only noticeable as tiny tremors in their upper arms. Suddenly, we were _not there_, and we were _here_.

I blinked, my toes curling at the intense cold of the great outdoors as I dangled from the mysterious shadow's arm. Moonlight dappled over us, leaves of the overhanging tree rustling gently in a midnight breeze.

They whipped their free hand towards their face, said a single word- _"Baku."_

Suddenly it was not so silent and dark. A great wall of light and sound blasted the miniscule night vision I'd had to hell and I yipped, tucking my head out of sight, under the clasping arm.

That was when the screams started.

I felt my stomach drop with sick apprehension and worry. What? Had there been an accident? Why was everyone screaming? Where was the black shadow taking me? Wait-

All of a sudden, the _heavy_ feeling dwindled into practically nothing. I gasped, surprised, the cool air not filling my lungs nearly fast enough.

The stranger tucked me more securely under their arm and then we were flying together.


	2. Chapter 2

**One reviewer and two alerts? You guys are spoiling me!**

**Unfortunately, no hard critique just yet. Please remember, I am posting this now to get the opinions and guidance of everyone here. I don't care if you're a beginner writer yourself or an author of true books, I promise to consider and value what you have to say.**

**This is a little shorter than last chapter. I was going to write some more, but it seemed a good note to end on. As always, enjoy, and thanks for your time.**

* * *

_'Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.' -John F. Kennedy**  
**_

* * *

I had come to know the shadow. In fact, it wasn't a shadow at all, but the name seemed to have attached itself permanently to my faint grasp on reality. The shadow was a human, dressed in dark clothing and stepping lightly to not make a sound. In that first terrifying night, I had _seen_ the dark of outside wrap around the shadow like a living thing. It was only when we paused in the fork of an enormous tree trunk that they shook off the presence that had driven even my meaningless babbles from my mind. Then, I had begun to cry.

This flustered the shadow. They tried to hold me differently, keep me warmer in the folds of their puffy sleeves, grunt something that could be mistaken for a song with half the lines forgotten, but I had had enough. Whoever this guy was, they'd taken me from the little green room, from the brown blur and the warm hands I'd known since I'd been first introduced to the world. I couldn't trust my senses when my eyesight blurred at six feet, but I had seen a flash of light, felt the heat from it, heard the painfully familiar voices _screaming_.

I'd felt the shockwave. This man was a terrorist.

I cried for hours. The shadow must have concluded that I was hungry as they took me to a warm building filled with many interesting smells. I sneezed on their arm and the cold rubber of a bottle tip was shoved into my mouth. Well, I _was_ hungry. It tasted good, and I gummed the bottle as we dashed back into the cold night.

I fell prey to the exhaustion that is babyhood and slept as we traveled. It was a rough ride and I had tiny scratches all over my big head and arms that I rubbed and cried some more over when we stopped for the night.

The shadow was seemingly prepared for any medical misfortunes. They treated my scratches with a foul-smelling and even fouler-tasting cream. I may have sucked my arm one night after thinking too deeply about _before_. My thumb seemed a safe alternative after that.

I still had no concept of time beyond the day/night cycle, and even in my old life I couldn't sleep during the day without forgetting what year it was. Not that my life was old, or anywhere near forgotten. I'd never forget my own life, the one that rightfully belonged to me.

The journey passed in flashes of bright colours, heat and hunger. I was hungry most of the time, but I didn't get a new bottle for two days. It felt _horrible_ to be that hungry.

Eventually, I woke, sprawled over the arm of the mysterious stranger. I had actually woken from the absence of the head-spinning speed of our journey so far; it must have been miles that he'd taken me, yet we were at our destination only a handful of days later. I drooled deliberately down the arm clasping me to their side, gazing up and up (and up and up and _up_).

This was an impressive house. The walls were bigger than the whole building I'd probably been born in. Streaks of colour over the nearest face of the house made me frown; that was a fairly obvious bit of graffiti. Did the shadow live here? If so, some punk kids were going to get a lot more than they bargained for.

We walked to the wall, the shadow not bothering to muffle the scuffing of their sandals in the sandy grit of the main road. They pressed a finger to the door and muttered something under their breath.

I twitched as a very dark something passed over my fuzzy head. The whisper of the shadow seemed to echo around us.

The creepily bitter presence gathered into an invisible ball of _get the hell away from me_. My hands flailed in my struggle to get away from it as the darkness streamed along the crooked line of his outstretched arm.

A long, screeching groan later and we were off through the open gates.

* * *

Two hands placed me carefully in the waiting hands of a wide-eyed girl, dressed from head to toe in a particularly nauseating tinge of teal nurse scrubs.

I sat in my dumb white blanket, which had somehow survived the journey across nations, trying stubbornly not to cry as foreign smells and hands passed over me. We went directly into a nearby room. The girl laid me down on the hard steel table so she could bustle about and pull various devices from cupboards and desks, setting them side-by-side next to my head. I stared with huge eyes as she gently held me down with one hand on my small body and skillfully arranged the earpieces of a stethoscope under her pale sepia hair.

The shadow came with us. They stood by the open door, arms folded as they observed the young nurse in her duties.

Something cold pressed against my skin. I burbled in surprise and blinked up at the girl. She frowned in concentration, ignoring my discomfort. The shadow shifted in the doorway, hands shifting into pockets as they settled more comfortably against the wood.

My shoulder was being held down. The girl's pale arms obstructed my view, somehow making it worse when something sharp bit into the skin and pressed down. I sniffled, shifting in my blanket, forcing back a familiar wave of fear, hopelessness and despair. How cruel was it that a baby could feel despair? Why did I have to remember all of this? If I had to be a baby again, why couldn't I just 'wake up' when it was all over and I wasn't the plaything of giants?

The pressure was removed and I held my arm to myself, pudgy fingers playing restlessly over the red mark left behind as the girl looked over something in her hands. She took it away and the shadow stepped forward, picking me up easily with their monstrous strength. I muttered and curled up in the warmth of the crook of the shadow's arm, seriously considering thumb-sucking as a new coping mechanism.

Being a baby is way too stressful.

Ah, to hell with it. If anyone tries to break me of the habit, at least they won't start until I'm old enough to have the presence of mind to break it myself. I stuck my thumb in my mouth and gummed it furiously, glaring at the nurse as she turned to smile and bow her head to the terrorist. They nodded back and stepped away, choosing to walk like a normal person rather than to whirl us away in some crazy teleportation trick.

I _hate_ hospitals.

I squirmed. _Someone_ hadn't bothered to check if I was clean beneath my grubby pink nappy.

So, it turns out what I'd thought was a house was just the outside of a wall. And this wall continued on, winding through the huge surrounding trees and around into a misshapen protected pocket village.

Buildings lined the dirt streets, but they were buildings like I'd never seen in my previous life. The word I could best use to describe them would be steampunk; mish-mashes of weird dome shapes, modern apartments, asian-esque market stalls set up along the wide main road and huge tanks covered with weird writing lined with plain steel railings on top of the larger houses. People were everywhere.

I had an excellent view of passerby's middles, hanging off the elbow of my kidnapper. We were surrounded by brightly-clothed civilians. Young women gathered in tight cliques, wandering through stalls hung with long drapes of cloth and sweet-smelling foodstuffs. Ladies with harsher lines etched in their faces hurried gaggles of children before them. Young men in outfits similar to the shadow strutted along, chins held high and bare fingers twitching at every sound.

I sniffed lovingly at the scent of something warm and bready roasting in a kind of sweet sauce. Oh, how I missed chocolate. And those sour gummy things covered with sugar. And the delightfully chemical taste of soft drinks late at night, when they could keep me awake as every sane person slept.

Let me tell you, wet nappies feel even worse than they smell. It was rough against my legs, a _squishy_ sensation on the seat of my bum. If only they weren't waterproof from the outside! I kicked my bare feet in the air, letting out a pitched squawl.

The bleeding fish had drawn in the sharks. I blinked as skirts, lacy, fringed and plain completely obscured what little view I'd had.

A very low growl rumbled through the arms clasping me to the stranger's side.

Well, I decided, as coos and probably very pointed questions were squealed overhead, this would be an excellent time to get on my captor's good side. He was practically ready to bolt, flinching at a particularly high note from a strawberry blonde girl sporting the biggest bright yellow bow I've ever seen.

With a tiny scowl of concentration on my pudgy little face, I did it.

It took a few very uncomfortable moments, but then it hit them. Their faces screwed up in disgust, hands held to noses as everyone's stares transferred to me, hanging in the shadow's grasp. I gave them most my innocent face and wiggled, allowing the stench out and up.

The shadow said nothing, but I felt his forearm loosen enough to let me breathe. The girls parted and we continued.

A roughly-shod hand petted my head once.

* * *

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but nothing could wipe the memory of that soft stuff just sitting there, stagnating in the ridiculous heat of the steampunk village. Buildings that I could only describe as nondescript passed us by, too weird and differing to be classified as particular neighbourhoods. The shadow wasn't bothered by the smell, it seems, since he didn't stop to get help or to clean me himself. I hated being a baby. This was humiliating.

It was as we approached a huge red, beehive-shaped building that I realized my eyesight had improved by leaps and bounds since that first blurry day lying in my own _liquids_. I could see a weird symbol emblazoned on the top tier of the building. It looked like someone had pinched the middle of a flat black line and drawn it up into a teepee-shape, then made two short dashes of ink, one to either side of the middle symbol. I gazed up at it with huge eyes as we passed under it, directly through the main doors.

The shadow was welcomed past many official desks and pot plant-laden meeting rooms, a pretty young lady absolutely dripping with some kind of invisible menace sending him past two buff guys with white masks.

We hadn't reached the third floor before I knew that I did _not_ want up there.

There was a presence up there, invisible like the shadow's weird creepiness and the intern's scary deadly intent, but much more powerful. I half imagined my skin was pressing back into my bones the closer we got. It didn't _feel_ evil, I don't think. It was the sheer power that had me scrambling again, beating meat pad feet on the impassive shadow's hip. I didn't want to go there! Each step struck my little heart. I sniffled and hiccupped when my captor glanced down before deciding to ignore me. Nothing made any difference.

Soon we were before a huge wooden door. Just standing there was like staring into the sun. I hid my face in the shadow's sleeve.

They swung towards us noiselessly and shadow strolled in, seemingly oblivious to the hard stares of more masked men standing together at the opposite end of the corridor.

I suppose you could call me dull, faithful reader. I'd been exposed to everything in this world with an open mind, yet I still hadn't picked up on what was going on.

It's been getting more difficult to remember things lately. I'm no scientist, but the general gist of things lingers longer than most memories; brains are biological computers, right? That means that though they have practically unlimited space, there is a tipping point where you can't store any more data. The idea of that makes me feel a bit unhappy... I think I disagreed with it before. Looks like I'd been living under a delusion.

My theory is that all of my memories are kept in whatever traveled with me to this world. So, the soul, the spirit, whatever you'd call it, my old memories are tied to that. Now that it's attached to a new body, with a new, fresh brain- obligatory zombie reference- the extraneous data is being overwritten by new memories and experiences, into the hardware of my brain.

I'm not happy about it, but it looks like I'm getting a fresh start.

Anyway, getting off topic here. So I could blame my brain rewrite for forgetting useless information, but really, it was my own stupid fault.

I'd been born from someone, into this place. It was definitely not anywhere near my old home. It may have been new baby lungs, but it smelt better. The air felt lighter in my chest and on my skin. I hadn't seen a single car, or heard any airplanes overhead. People here wore clothes unfamiliar to me, and the writing was unintelligible. Apparently there were still terrorists around, and methods of exploding things from a distance, but I hadn't seen any wires, microphones or television sets _anywhere_.

It'd be fine to blame all of this on somehow appearing in a third world country. I could get behind that.

But I remember plenty of those, poor and underprivileged countries dotted throughout a mostly rich and peaceful world. Everyone here was clothed, was smiling, ate well and moved with belying hard looks in their eyes. Even for a foreign country, this was completely... foreign to me.

I was still stubbornly stuck on this being some weird spiritual experience. I guess God has a really good sense of humour?

Then I came face-to-desk with a painfully familiar face.

The door swung shut silently behind us.

* * *

_His arm twitched under the troublesome infant. The office of the Hokage, as always, emanated a sense of serenity and protection; it was a relief to allow himself to relax, nodding peaceably to the ANBU agents standing guard at either end of the corridor. They looked him over from their high perches in the rafters for a moment and allowed their gazes to pass without incident._

_The shinobi hesitated before pushing open the familiar wooden doors. This hadn't been his least successful mission, but... it wasn't often in Konoha's best interests to do as he had done. It was other hidden villages that stole bloodlines, it was somewhere else that the darker, grittier stuff of their livelihood was commonplace._

_Another light touch on his arm drew his gaze down to the infant hiding its face in his sleeve. His face wasn't used to smiling, but... a tiny smile lifted the corners of his lips before the man could pull them down again._

_Taking a deep breath, the ninja strode confidently into the office._

_Standing at attention, he saluted the Hokage. "Shikakio Nara, reporting with a successfully completed mission."_

_Those fierce eyes stared at the tinges of soot throughout his usual uniform, making their own, secret judgements. Then they flickered to the (admittedly putrid) small human in his crook of his elbow._

_"Report."_

_"Yes, sir. My mission was to disrupt the peace of an Iwa village, fairly close to the border. No distinction was to be made between villages, to keep information on a target from being leaked to the enemy._

_I arrived at a village within the definitions of the mission within two days, without stopping. I spent three hours to recuperate and to wait for the villagers to disperse._

_The explosives were laid out around a hospital known to harbour Iwa shinobi that had survived battle with Konoha forces. I entered the building to identify if there were any high-profile ninja that would be caught in the blast."_

_A disapproving huff, the Hokage rested his forehead against clasped hands, staring down at his desk. Shikakio suppressed a wince; it had been foolish to enter enemy territory without back-up, and identifying potential victims, while useful for the data-crunchers in the bowels of Konoha, would be useless to a dead shinobi. He hurried on with his explanation, eager to forget just how close his mission may have been to failure._

_"Using techniques unique to my Clan, I found several known ninja, one of whom I was forced to dispatch personally, without raising an alarm."_

_"And did you record the names of these shinobi?" asked the Hokage._

_He ducked his head. "I haven't had time, sir. I was going to visit the Intelligence Divison when I had reported in..."_

_The silence was oppressive._

_It was rare that Shikakio was made to remember why Hiruzen Sarutobi was the Hokage of Konohagakure; there was a sheer, raw power behind the man that was so often hidden behind a smile or friendly gesture. He hadn't been lucky- or cursed- enough to know his leader well. That was why he visibly flinched as the granite face of the Hokage cracked into a small smile, exactly what Shikakio had sported for the split second he had taken to push open his doors._

_"There is no rush, Shikakio Nara. I would have been worried if you had considered your own achievements to be above reporting in to me- or over the health of this little one. Tell me... why did you kidnap a child of Iwa?" Hiruzen asked slowly._

_The baby had the same oblivious look it'd had since the night he'd taken it. Glancing down at it, Shikakio felt his shoulder lift into a half-shrug and tossed his head ruefully. "I... I'm not sure, sir. This was the only child I found in the hospital. There is no sign of it having any kekkei genkai or specific heritage, but..."_

_He looked at it again. The little thing had been fairly troublesome on the way home, restricting him to a speed which wouldn't damage such fragile goods. It peeked up at him and yawned hugely, lips stretched wide over toothless gums._

_Shikakio straightened to attention again, realizing he had fallen into a slouch as his mind wandered. The Hokage watched him expressionlessly._

_"I found myself incapable of leaving it to die, sir."_


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank 'ye kindly for the review, alerts and the fave. It's great to get positive feedback. I'd appreciate some constructive criticism, if any readers are willing, but if you just want to stop by and read that would make my poor little story's day.**

**As for the Japanese in this chapter, don't bother to translate it yourself. It's meant to be gibberish, aside from one or two key words, since our baby isn't bilingual. I'll be avoiding spamming you all with too much romaji, and let's be honest, this isn't a Japanese how-to-train-your-baby book. Expect some stuff about baby learning to say ma-ma, but I'll simply be translating it into English later on.**

**Happy travels, and enjoy.**

* * *

_'Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.' -Seneca._

* * *

There's a reason why people don't bother to teach children to read until they're old enough to speak.

I was sitting on someone's lap, staring at a small mountain of files and loose papers held together by the tiniest black paperclip. The fact that they'd bothered to paint even the paperclips some nondescript colour would've been funny if more creepy masked guys weren't staring at me as if I was about to spontaneously sprout wings and start breathing fire.

My higher functions had left me like the contents of my bladder as the shadow had brought me into that room. I came back to awareness on the warm knees of someone else.

The knees bounced as the person I was sitting on laughed at something one of the masked men said. Their hands moved busily picking up papers, sorting through them to find whatever specimen they were looking for. A big stamp came down with a thump and I jumped, startled. The stranger laughed again and ran bare fingers through my stubby hair. Touchy, this guy.

Time passed and I grew bored. Having 'slept' for an indeterminate amount of time, I was itching to do something towards figuring out who that guy was. He was so familiar, like a teacher I'd known growing up or a friend of a friend I'd had to know for the original friend's sake. It was weird, thinking about things with people actually paying attention to what I was doing. For all I knew, a giant question mark popped up over my head when I did so. What if I was pulling a face toddlers didn't? Was I being suspicious?

I don't think it'd matter if I did do something out of the ordinary, but I got a really bad feeling from the masked men. It was sort of like a presence, but less personalized, not quite as unique. It blended into the feelings from other individuals, making it an invisible wall of ill-intent.

I gulped and flopped over, half hoping to reach the floor and maybe roll away from them a little. It seemed my new captor was a lot more responsible than the previous one; they picked me up firmly with hands under my armpits and placed me on the table in front of him.

He had the prettiest eyes. They were a dark, dusky grey and they crinkled into crows' feet as he grinned at me. The rest of his features didn't really make an impact on me, but the crazy hair certainly did. Heavy chocolate-brown spikes rested over the edge of a navy blue headband that was tied to cover his forehead, a dull metal plate engraved with a spiked swirl attached to its middle. I reached out and put my hand on it, viciously sliming my fingerprints all over its surface.

He reached up to gently pull my hand away, looking pleased for some reason. One of the masked men said something in a light-hearted voice, and the man nodded, not laughing this time.

His hand was a lighter shade of mocha against mine. Hmm... I wasn't like this before, was I? I seem to recall being pale as a sickly ghost.

Oh, right. Different parents. I wonder who they were?

The guy glanced over my red, itchy arms and motioned one of the masked men over. They had a short, almost heated discussion. The masked guy intensified the icy cool in his or her voice, the dude apparently looking after me snapping back angrily. I stuck my thumb in my mouth and sat back to wait.

The argument ended when the mask turned to me and I saw the glittering darkness of eyes staring through tiny eye-holes.

A flurry of soft, tickly green brushed against my sore arms and into my face. I giggled at the sensation.

Two iron-strong clamps seized me and we were away.

* * *

I won't bore you with any more of the paperwork I was forced to witness that day. My stomach cringed and whined from hunger as I was whirled from place to place, teleporting all over the freaking place.

The masked guy carrying me held me out like I was a live bomb in his hands. It was probably the lingering remains of my little surprise putting him off, but it was still pissing me off. Is this how everyone treated babies around here? I'd met people literally born and raised out on the streets with better manners than this.

Despite my burning wish to glare directly into their puny little eyeholes, I eventually succumbed to my lesser instincts and began to cry as we landed in the courtyard outside of a long, boringly ordinary building.

Copious amounts of snot were slimed all over the gloves wrapped around me.

The inside of the building was mildly more interesting than the outside. A wave of foreign scents sent me into a coughing fit as we pashed the threshold, but I squinted through watering eyes, intensely curious about the snuffles and low murmuring about us.

Little kids were _everywhere_. The room seemed to swim in a multicoloured haze of hair ranging from black to white and every colour in between. They sat in circles passing little coloured balls to each other, climbed over the thickly padded furniture and pillows, wrestled each other into submission and basically made as much mess and noise as humanly possible. Two ladies stood over them chattering away in their foreign language. They turned to nod at my current captor politely and one of them shouted something over the dull roar.

I was lifted up in some kind of gesture to the ladies.

After the obligatory coos and cheek-pinching, they deigned to take me from the masked creeper. Their hands held me in a way I hadn't been held before. It's hard to describe without being small enough to be carried around like a squalling, fleshy purse, but they definitely knew what they were doing. Even with the mess in my nappy and the hunger pains, I felt myself grow drowsy and my crying died down into a whimper.

The rest of that day was warmth, soft hands and a happily full belly. I sank into pillow-clouded shadows, the golden haze of sunset a fading glow on my cleaned and band-aided skin as I dropped into the blackness of dreamless sleep.

* * *

A gentle wisp of crisp morning breeze curled over my cot, the chill sinking under the skin and into my bones. I shivered and flapped my arms, hoping the blanket would flap further up my cold little body.

The nursery was silent. It was too early. Again.

A huff escaped my lips and I stared up at the ceiling. Blank, again. There was really nothing babies could do, was there? Maybe in a week I could try some halfhearted attempts to roll over so I could at least see the world the right way up. It was getting far too easy to read people's faces upside-down.

It had quickly become apparent that this was either some kind of boarding school for kids ranging from babyhood to just under legal adulthood, or I had been deposited in an orphanage.

The faces around me were ever-changing, and with my tendency to forget details within seconds, trying to remember specific people was overwhelming. The kind auburn eyes and pug nose of the most friendly of the caretakers stayed with me, though her name still escaped my memory. With the babble coming from baby lips and the babble between gossiping adults, I hadn't had any luck in deciphering more than one or two words in the language everyone was speaking.

Not being able to actually speak was off-putting, too, but I practised every night to myself, mouthing the vowels and grunting a little more clearly as the days passed. It wouldn't be wise to suddenly come out with English when I was about two months old. Hell, maybe English was a dead language and hearing an adult speak it would be like visiting ancient Greece.

I say a dead rather than foreign language deliberately.

My mind wandered off to dance with mental anthro daffodils. Crickets quietened down as the sun rose higher, the air still chilled from the long night. Doors opened and closed, first quietly, beginning to slam as the hours passed.

Finally a young man wandered into the nursery and swept the trailing curtains into bundles on either side of the windowframe. I peeked at the tow-headed boy as he glanced over each cot, nodding his head silently at each baby. Half-closed eyes paused at my wide-awake, curious face.

He said something, the last few words raised in pitch. I cocked my head like a bird. He was silent for a moment and repeated his phrase, slowly, pronouncing each syllable.

"Ohayou gozaimasu. O genki desu ka?"

A-hah! An actual sentence, in the quiet where I could actually hear and understand it!

I puffed out my chest and grinned. "Ggghhwaahhhaa!"

We stared at each other. The guy half-shrugged and left without another word.

Rats.

* * *

Feeding and cleaning time came and went. I stared at a wall, desperately clinging to a happy place as a complete stranger changed my nappy. The schedule of this place was fairly regular, if you ignored the constant influx of weirdly-garbed adults and variously aged new members of the orphan club. Every day had involved food, humilation and sleep. Cleaning was immediately followed by nap time, so I held up my hands in baby language for 'up, your mistress commands you,' as the orderly finished taping my new nappy in place.

I was placed on fluffy carpet beside four other babies.

Fingers curled deep into the dark blue of the playroom floor, I hunched over my lap. What fresh hell was this? You do not just change my routine without giving me a week to panic over having to learn baby politics. You do _not_.

The others weren't much happier about being abandoned to the wild wastes of the rec room. Two of them immediately flopped over, unable to keep their balance sitting up. The third stared at me vacantly, sucking every finger and thumb it could get its nasty little mouth on. I splayed my hands backwards, holding myself upright with only my puny arm muscles. Breathless at my victory, I giggled and said a long string of gibberish.

A little button nose and two enormous black eyes attached to a human head was suddenly in my face. I yipped and fell backwards, shoving carpet-fluff hands at the fourth baby that was practically lying on top of me.

The baby fell a bit, too, but was fast enough to catch itself on outstretched palms.

We were silent and still for at least a minute. I stared into the baby's face, sticking out my bottom lip and furrowing the weak muscles of my face to make the most fearsome scowl the world had ever seen. My shoulers and lack of biceps trembled, but I made them work enough to push me back up to be sitting. It was much easier on the ground, without blankets and a mattress to eat up my weight like so much quicksand.

The other baby awkwardly moved its hands around, patting the ground with each one until it was sitting again and not leaning over me. My thumb found its way into my mouth.

The two weaklings found each other and had produced a squishy block from somewhere. One of them tried to end its miserable existence by eating it, but thankfully the nurses here knew what kind of toys to give babies. Another of our little crew bum-shuffled over to join in on the slobbery fun. I eyed the copious amounts of saliva soaking into the carpet. The kid that had done the baby equivalent of a glomp watched from afar, but made no move towards the now-wrestling human larvae.

A single nurse watched us with one eye fixed on the pages of a brightly-coloured book, apparently oblivious to the epic struggle between Ginger No.1, Readhead Rumble and Mr Mohawk.

I sighed and gave up on holding myself up. The world was less boring when you looked at it upside-down.

* * *

Each day was marked by 'play time' after the first bottle and clean-up, and I have to admit, it was slightly less boring than staring up at a ceiling during those lackluster moments where I could remember where, who and what I was.

The other babies had formed some kind of mystic cult in an area of the room they viciously guarded. Any baby foolish enough to slowly wriggle over the imaginary line of doom would be tackled. And drooled on. For hours.

I watched them build the sacred tower of the Coloured Blocks. I saw them tug one of their number to the ground and drag a weirdly-shaped plush dagger over the trapped baby in what I could only describe as an attempt to make a gory sacrifice. Best of all, I was witness to the weird kid getting the drool treatment when they wandered over the Line of Doom. I may have laughed myself until I was sick all over the floor, but I helped the baby to safety once the clinging octopi released their prey.

The kid watched me with those soulful black eyes until I was unnerved enough to break eye contact and probably lose some kind of baby domination ritual.

We had an unspoken pact to not bother each other. I think. The kid left me alone, anyway.

I spent the time out of the cot practising using my muscles and focusing on objects further away, usually out of the window. There was a huge mountain out there just in sight, but it was still too blurry to make out.

Once or twice the overwatch left drawing books and various things in a weak gesture at guiding our puny brains towards creative thinking. When I was hurting and bored enough from my usual pursuits I gave colouring a go.

Nearly gave the old lady a heart attack.

My mostly-coloured-in-the-lines picture was stuck to the wall and the adults began paying more attention to me. I deliberately shredded and ate two whole colouring books when the lurking became too annoying, but this just drew more attention from the weirder of onlookers. We even had a masked guy babysit us for a day, though I was careful to act as simple-minded as possible until he went home.

I was stronger every day. Growing up felt like slowly becoming Superman. I could stay awake for longer, eat less, move faster and carry my weight around myself.

Within another month I could shuffle along on my hands and knees. I scooted around the room like that so fast that the drooling police could never catch me, and I dealt the enterprising individual that followed me to my corner a sharp blow over the head that made them cry.

Until then, I hadn't been thinking too much of how I had arrived here. It was cleaner and more fun than the nursery I'd been born into, and I'd never really met anyone that I'd cared about there anyway. Of course I'd figured out that kidnapping had been involved, but I'm fairly sure most orphans weren't treated this well even in the more modern world I'd lived in. Every adult that held me had something softly spoken to say and they never actually hit me, even if I'd done wrong.

One uneventful day, I was having a race with the weird black-eyed kid. It hadn't figured out how to crawl yet, so I was gleefully lapping the kid and the room over and over until I collapsed, happily red-faced and panting. The black-eyed baby slowly but surely made its way over to me and smiled a little as it stopped to rest beside me.

"Goo kii!" I slurred, slapping the baby gently with an open hand. It grinned toothlessly, pink gums shining wetly in the harsh luminescence of the overhead lights.

Glowing with satisfaction at proving myself the rightful queen and at my near-pronunciation of actual English, I didn't notice the strangers until they were standing right in front of me.

"Jun-chan! Jun-chan!"

I looked up, mentally cursing how miniscule babies were. Up, and up, and up... and up... those were some long legs there. Two curious faces peered down at me, one wrapped in bandages with hair sticking out of them like the top of a strawberry and the other heart-shaped with flowing puke green locks draped over their shoulders. I gazed up at them as the friendly nurse I remembered from my cot days bustled over to pick me up and hold me out to the two freaks.

"Kanojyo wa Jun-chan desu," burbled the nurse, bobbing a short bow. "Kanojo ha san kagetsu shika furui desu ga, Jun-chan ha sudeni sen nai no karā ga deki masu!"

Well, that was a whole load of what.

Strawberry nodded slowly, his dark gaze resting on me. "Ta kanojo ha sare te i masu ka ? Kanojo no oya deshi ta ka ?"

As they conversed, I was transferred to the hands of the cat sick stranger. She held me carefully and spun me in a slow 360 degree mid-air front flip. Well... I stuck my thumb in my mouth and wriggled, clenching my gums as the world spun sickeningly around me. Her hands barely shook as I did the angry baby hokey pokey.

"Sayonara, Jun-chan," spoke up the friendly nurse, ducking her face to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. I thought she shook for a moment, but the woman merely gasped for air before looking up at me with a happy, smiling face. I smiled back instinctively and reached out for her, very ready to be away from cat sick Rapunzel.

But no. She shook her head and stepped back, nodding politely to the two strangers. Strawberry nodded back and turned to leave, greenilocks close behind him. Carrying me with them.

"Gggagaaagagg! Gnnnoooonnnnnn! Gggggggwwee gwwoo gooon?!" I shrilled. Maybe an overreaction- maybe these people would be babysitting us for the day. But why were we heading out of the room? The nurses were either too lazy or too germaphobic to take us outside. I hadn't had a faceful of fresh air since those nights in the countryside. Strawberry passed under the doorframe and strode on to the left. I tried to grab the wooden frame, but I was being clasped protectively to a warm bosom and couldn't reach far enough.

No. No, I'd just arrived here. It wasn't much, but it was home. My home, and my kids, damnit!

I snatched the cloth of cat sick's dark grey shirt and pulled with all of my new strength. Slowly, slowly, I dragged myself up and up, out of the cage of her arms and up onto her shoulder.

The three cultists were watching me go with the usual mix of stoned befuddlement. I wasn't too sorry to see them go, aside from their daily entertainment value. What really tugged at my tiny baby heartstrings was the wail coming from dark-eyes. For a kid, that one, while weird, was pretty smart. It knew what was going on. Had probably figured it out before I did. That cute button nose scrunched and tears began to streak down its face as cat sick turned after leaving the room. With a gargantuan effort, I let go of the shirt with one hand to wave, muscles straining to hold my weight with one fisted piece of cloth.

The kid sniffled and waved back.

I let myself be pulled down and clasped tighter in the stranger's arms. I couldn't feel the sunlight shine on me for the first time in a while, indifferent to the wonderfully clean and flower-laden scents of the air. I hadn't even known the kid's name. Was it a boy or a girl? Did it matter either way? Why did it hurt so much, why did it hurt more with each step away from the orphanage?

Frustration curled up in my belly and I kicked, shoving and clawing my arm out of the warm grip around me to stick my thumb in my mouth. Gumming the little pad hard, I curled in on myself and refused to respond to the soft stroke over my fluffy skull dome. Strawberry waited for us by the open fence gate and stared at me curiously. I only deigned to look at him to deliver my most milk-curdling glare and returned to avoiding their searching faces.

The two giants had a silent conversation with their eyes and finally, cat sick nodded. She leapt into the air and leaves swirled around us- then we were no longer there.

* * *

The little spoon poked my bottom lip. I clenched my itchy gums together and glared, pouting. The pout only left my lip open for more poking, but I was determined. If I was patient enough, if I said no enough times, maybe I'd be taken back to the-

A pressure at the back of my skull, two sharp pressing pains on either side of my jaw and a sudden thrust of the spoon, and I had a mouthful of mashed something sitting on my tongue. Fuck!

"Uuuuwaaaaaaaaaaaah!" I complained. The spoon rapped me on the forehead.

Red-faced and blinking to hold back tears, I pushed back in my stupid plastic high chair and crossed my arms with a huff. My nose itched furiously and I rubbed it without taking my eyes off the woman slowly dipping the spoon back into the jar. Oh, right, the food. I must have already swallowed it.

Baby food is nasty. It didn't taste too bad, but the texture? Every time that stuff squished in my mouth I went as green as kaa-chan's hair.

I didn't know their names, but calling them strawberry and cat sick was juvenile, even for me. For parents- adoptive, I guess- they weren't exactly warm or goo-goo-eyed over the slighest burp or baby blabber. It took a few days to figure out what they liked as I was set loose to crawl all over their tiny, cold house, but as I saw them embrace one night silhouetted in the complete blackness of the night beyond an open door with the woman's hair tied into four tight buns and both with sharp metal versions of the cultist baby sacrificial knife strapped to their persons, something in my head clicked.

They were wearing clothes similar to that of the shadow and the masked men. Like them, they were both extremely fit, more tight-fitting clothing with no care to the slight muffintop the woman had going and carried knives with them at night. Is it safe to say that my new guardians were assassins?

Or mercenaries would be more likely. Anyway, the two people that had taken me in from my orphanage both had the same career, which was likely dangerous. A lot of the people I'd seen around the cool city looked the same. This place was a home to a lot of dangerous people, and I'd been taken to live here against the will of my original guardians.

Was I supposed to turn into that?

...No, that was crazy. No-one liked child soldiers. These people were too caring towards their orphans for that.

Despite the sometimes cool attitude towards me, I quickly picked up on their dramatic pointing to themselves, pronouncing "Kaa-san!" or "Tou-san!" They referred to me as 'Jun-chan', which I guess is my new name. It's short and to the point, which I like, but it was slowly occurring to me that all of our names ended in 'an'. We all had unique titles before the slight pause and 'san' or 'chan' was added, which made me wonder- what if 'san' meant something like sir, and 'chan' was something you said to a baby?

The idea felt right in my head, which probably meant that I'd known that to be true before.

Feeling particularly vindictive from the mush being forced down my throat and the regular sleeping hours they were forcing on me, I called them kaa-chan and tou-chan in my head. I wasn't dumb enough to try and say it out loud. They'd called in the masked police last time I'd coloured inside the lines, for heaven's sake. Imagine if they knew I understood every worried glance out the window, over the top of the forest and in a particular direction, or each exaggerated joyfully voiced word they tried to teach me.

I'd be considered some kind of freak of nature. I'd be expected to learn faster than other kids. I'd have to work!

Kaa-chan scraped up the last bit of mushy food and peeked at me from behind her green hair. I was not fooled.

Her hand trembled very slightly just before she made her move.

I ducked to the left, chin tucked to my chest. The spoon blew past my face, sliming my ear with bright orange pureed carrot. It pulled back and jabbed at me again. I only just dodged it this time, turning my head so it skated off my cheek. Kaa-chan withdrew again and stared at me contemplatively. I stuck out my bottom lip. Fancy trying again, hotshot?

Rough hands gripped my head from the back and forced my mouth open. I coughed on the last of the carrot, surprised. Tou-chan looked down at me expressionlessly aside from his customary eyebrow tic.

Damn, he'd snuck up on me quietly. How the hell did he do that?

Kaa-chan muttered something to him and he glanced at her, surprised. I shifted uncomfortably, my head still gripped in monster man hands. Tou-chan's grasp on my head softened and he stroked my fluffy head. Whatever Kaa-chan had said seemed to have diffused the situation without my having to grovel. Yessssssssssssssss...

Tou-chan's face crinkled into a happy smile and he stroked my head again. The gesture seemed weirdly possessive, so I yanked my head out of his hands and huffed. The adults were being off today. Maybe they were coming down with something and didn't have the brains to try and avoid having helpless baby getting it.

Kaa-chan stood and hugged her partner. He accepted it happily, twirling a little as they both looked down at me with equally blissful faces.

I stared at them for a moment before shrugging it off and wiping the carrot off my face. Please bring on the day when I'll understand this stupid language and won't have to be some kind of body language interpreter.


End file.
